Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and genocide in Sudan

April 5, 2006

The more we learn about [tag]Jack Abramoff[/tag], the more breathtaking his conduct appears. His outreach to the [tag]Sudanese[/tag] government, however, is not only appalling, it also includes a helpful tie-in to [tag]Ralph Reed[/tag].

Two eyewitnesses say that former lobbyist Jack Abramoff proposed to sell his services to the much-criticized government of [tag]Sudan[/tag] to help improve its abysmal reputation in the United States, especially among Christian evangelicals who were campaigning against human rights violations in the troubled African nation. […]

According to the lobbyist’s former associate, Abramoff sat with the ambassador in the skybox and described an elaborate and costly plan to blunt the effect of pressure from Christian groups with money and travel, two of the methods Abramoff frequently deployed in his Washington lobbying campaigns.

He said some of the money would be sent to the Christian Coalition and some would be spent encouraging Christian leaders to visit Sudan and talk with the government. Other money would be spent on a grass-roots campaign to promote a better image of the country in the United States.

The former associate said Abramoff repeatedly told the ambassador that he would arrange for his friend Reed to push the idea with Christian groups.

Like Jason Zengerle, I find this to be oddly predictable, while also nauseating.

Let’s flesh this out for a minute. Abramoff wanted to help make the Sudanese look better, because apparently all the genocide has been bad for the country’s reputation. He had a plan to work with evangelical Christian groups, which have condemned the killings, and effectively pay them off.

And who would help Abramoff pull all this off? “His friend [tag]Reed[/tag],” who is, of course, Ralph Reed.

We’re talking about a group of people who just don’t recognize moral limits.

Update: In comments, my friend Eugene Oregon reminds us that Abramoff’s offer was extended in 2001, two years before the genocide in Darfur began, though the humanitarian crisis was already underway.

What I find interesting is that it wasn’t reall necessary. It is not like this government has done much of anything about Darfur anyway because they are so interested in keeping open the lines of communication/intelligence sharing because of al Queda connections.

  • For what it is worth, Abramoff’s proposal was made in 2001, two years before the genocide in Darfur began.

    In 2001, the Right was primarily concerned with Khartoum’s war against Christains in the south and that is why Bush named John Danforth his envoy to Sudan. Danforth eventually secured a peace deal and shortly after that, the genocide in Darfur began.

    Congress had actually labelled the war against the south “genocide” as well, though it received very little coverage.

    Anyway, my point is that Abramoff made his offer before Darfur. This doesn’t make it any better because what has been happening in Darfur had been happening in the south for two decades. But for the sake of clarity, I just wanted to point out that Abramoff was not offering to help Sudan’s image when it came to Darfur.

  • Excuse me, but isn’t “war against Christians in the south” something that maybe Christians would oppose as much as tribal/religious genocide? Shouldn’t a skybox meeting with Sudan’s ambassador to pitch a propaganda campaign to buff up the regime’s image and featuring sanctimonious faker Ralph Reed be offensive no matter which sub-group the government of Sudan is slaughtering? What a very special relationship to the revealed Word of God is held by ultra-Orthodox Jack, uber-Fundamentalist Ralph, and guided-by-the-Lord Tom Delay!

    Do we know that the impasse in Congress regarding Darfur is not something Abramoff and Delay created for a fee? Have all the money trails to fake charities and bank accounts of “religious” leaders been exposed? As a Christian, I can hardly wait until the money trail on this and other issues is at last directly linked to the Elmer Gantrys of the radical Right. It would be good to see more sheeple back attending real church services instead getting their “religion” via staged spectacles at mega-churches or televagelism that asks for no commitment to anything deeper than mailing in a check.

  • Is there any evidence that Ralph knew of this offer or was in any way complicit in it? It’s only fair to only blame him for the creepy things that he’s actually done.

  • As a Christian, I can hardly wait until the money trail on this and other issues is at last directly linked to the Elmer Gantrys of the radical Right.
    — W Action

    AMEN! Talk about hijacking a Religion. I’m with Gridlock; I don’t know how much more I can stomach

  • Why does the press, alright the religious press, alright the religions themselves … let these guys get away with representing Christianity?

    I’m not even a Christian (nor anything else of that ilk, though did spend three years preparing to be a Franciscan priest). Even so, I have known many good Christians who I would never associate with the likes of Ralphie Reed, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson. How do they get away with such identity theft?

    Everyone who could read knew that Elmer Gantry was a chartetan, that William Jennings Bryan (or any of the TV or radio preachers today) didn’t speak for all Protestants, that the current Pope doesn’t even speak for all Catholics (certainly not those who practice birth control or support the quagmire in Iraq). We used to make distinctions between real relgions and such fruitcakes.

    Now, for some reason, the only “Christians” we hear from (though the corporate media, at least), are the nuts listed above or that other nut who holds anti-gay protests at soldiers’ funerals. This really is a peculiar country.

  • It would seem that some of the so-called Christian Right are more concerned about the “War Against Christianity” in the U.S. than the “War Against Christianity” in Sudan.

    But then again… over there it’s only po’ folk getting oppressed. Over here, it’s good Caucasian Christians of upright moral standing who are oppressed and victimized by a store clerk saying “Happy Holidays.”

    Another example of the same hypocricy that lets poor Africans die of HIV/AIDS because we have to stress Abstinence and Fidelity in Christian Marriage over HIV prevention programs that work.

    Eeyore, who needs to relax and take an anti-bitterness pill tonight.

  • “For what it is worth, Abramoff’s proposal was made in 2001, two years before the genocide in Darfur began.”

    I wonder what this says about the NY Times who, I understand, ran an eight page advertising supplement on behalf of the Sudanese government just a few weeks ago.

  • You can see the NYT’s Sudan inster here.

    The Times’ Nick Kristof, who has done more than just about anyone else to raise awareness of Darfur didn’t seem too bothered by it – this is what he wrote on his TimesSelect page:

    “Frankly, I’m not so horrified. As readers know, I try to emphasize practical consequences, and I don’t see that publishing this ad supplement hurts the people of Darfur in any way whatsoever. You can’t argue that this supplement is going to persuade Americans to stop complaining about the genocide – on the contrary, it is so ‘in your face’ that it has goaded Americans to speak up against the slaughter.

    I also do think that in general newspapers should make themselves, including their advertising pages, an open forum for all your views, and should be very reluctant to block particular views. If this supplement were a racist tract saying that all Zaghawa tribe members are scum and should die, that would be so offensive that I would agree that it should be blocked. On the other hand, this advertising isn’t racist; this is just pabulum.

    So I don’t think the Times let the people of Darfur down on this one. Frankly, I think a better case could be made for protesting the Times – and the rest of the media, especially TV – on the basis that we all didn’t cover Darfur as aggressively as we should have. That lapse was a breach of our responsibility and it really did harm the people of Darfur, and that would be a good reason to galvanize a public outcry.

    All that said, do I feel good about this advertising supplement? No, of course not. I look at it, and I want to take a shower. It represents blood money. It tarnishes a newspaper I love. But that seems to me more of an internal blemish, a housekeeping matter for the Times itself and a question of our own internal standards, than a moral failure that makes us complicit in genocide.”

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